ABSTRACT
Since the fifteenth century, writers have been claiming that Willem Beukels of Biervliet invented a new way of processing herring so that the fish would keep for a long time. The story has taken various forms, but in most cases that citizen of a fishing village in northern Flanders, in the province of Zeeland in the kingdom of the Netherlands, is credited with starting the great expansion in the Low Countries herring fishery. Netherlands fishermen consistently exploited the opportunities created by the difficulties of the Scania fishery. The prices of cured herring in the Netherlands reflected the sudden interruptions in the supply of fish from Scania. They also show the mechanism which existed for keeping the Flemish government informed of the situation in the herring market. Most important the development in the Netherlands herring fishery offers a good example, despite some confusion, of the process of technical innovation in the later Middle Ages.
